Sunday, March 15, 2015

Afton Villa Gardens is a historic site located in St. Francisville, LA. Its history began in 1820. You may read more on the web site if you wish. A fire destroyed the main home in 1963 and only the gardens remain. Although not my first time there, I had missed the azaleas and daffodils blooming. I have so many photos that I will have to create another post. I had loads of fun with the photo group on this outing.

Comments closed temporarily
until I can get caught up.

Double D's Picks

Hello gang! I hope everyone had a beautiful holiday filled with food, family, friends and fond memories. We had two wonderful gatherings with my kids, two weeks apart. Those visits pretty much wiped me out. I'm still in recovery mode.

After waiting several days for the sun to shine, our window of opportunity finally arrived: New Year's Eve day. So Double D drove me to my favorite spot in Madisonville, LA. I had hoped the morning light was going to be behind me, bathing the pelicans in light, but no such luck. Whether I had gone in the afternoon or morning didn't matter, since the sun was positioned on the sides of the water. I photographed from every angle imaginable, fiddled with my camera settings, and still, I could not expose the pelicans properly. Just when I thought I might have it figured out, we got run off by the cops, because apparently they are still working on the sea wall. Drats.

I worked with these shots in Lightroom and PS for a long while, finally losing perspective and patience. After two days, pulling every trick I knew, I summoned Double D and asked him to be totally honest and tell me which ones he liked. These are Double D's picks. :)

We were both on the fence about this shot since the bokeh is so overwhelming.
Although distracting, we thought it was a cool pic.

I will finish making blog rounds this week. Y'all have a good'n, and thanks for stopping by!

Check out other birds
around the world at
Anni's Bird D'pot!

Lake Des Allemands

Friday, July 25, 2014 at my cousin's camp. Fun times.

There are several of these jetties around the campsites. Each year
erosion from hurricanes and other storms whittle away the land.
They have tried to protect them by reinforcing the borders.

Oops...'scuse me!

Some type of algae maybe?
Eggs from the Apple Snail.
Thanks, Wally!!!!

All along the banks are piers with each one hosting its own little garden.

Close up of the cypress knees.

I hope you enjoyed your trip around the bayou. There are more photos, but I don't know when I'll get around to posting them.

Chance Update:
Chance is back home after being hospitalized for possible Vestibular Disease. His progress is slow, but we're hoping for continued improvement in the coming days and weeks. The doctor explained that he will have a permanent head tilt which we can accept. However, he is not the same happy dog following me from room to room. He sleeps most of the time because I suspect it's too stressful for him to get around. Even trying to stand up from a lying position is difficult and he becomes very shaky. Yesterday he tried to turn around too quickly and fell completely over. Scared him AND me to death! But he has begun to eat and drink a little, which is encouraging.

Due to my limited time with Chance and working from home next week, I will be taking a short blog break. Probably just a week, maybe a little longer. Thank you as always for your kind comments and visits. It is truly appreciated! I'll miss you guys, but will see y'all soon!!!

Owl Bayou Canal

This post wraps up our July 4th afternoon. You can thank me now for not taking photos of the alligator that had to be "disposed of" because it was hanging around the canals. *shivers* I felt sorry for him, but we just couldn't risk the safety of the youngsters. Besides, it wasn't my call to make. Anyway! These are random shots of the day.

This is the highway marker for a community of camps situated along the bayou.
A "camp" in Louisiana is a modestly built home, usually elevated on tall posts due to frequent flooding.
Most are accessible only by boat. Many people have them as a weekend get-away for family and friends.

My uncle's party barge--wish it wasn't blurred.

Dragonflies were everywhere and they seemed particularly smitten with Uncle Bubba.

YUM. Simply angel food cake, whipped cream and berries.

Double D was mighty proud that he was the first person Cowgirl allowed to pick up and pet.
Look at her winking at me like, "Haha, stole him from you." Saucy little tart!

She soon warmed up to me too.
Look at those eyes! Have you ever seen a chihuahua with such blue eyes and a blue merle coat?

She appointed herself Patrol Captain of the bayou, barking at all the watercraft that went by.

That's my aunt and uncle's camp in the background. Two bedroom, two baths and two huge living areas. Very spacious.
This photo was taken because the people on the boat unknowingly left their little yorkie on the dock.
As they obliviously zoomed away, several of us were yelling and waving at them to come back.
Finally, they realized what they had done and were so grateful to us for rescuing their little dog.

One of the hosts with her granddaughter walking onto my Uncle Bubba's deck.
This will have to do for Tex's Good Fences meme. Sorry, I know I've been stretching the rules lately!

Can you believe I went a whole week without posting a bird photo? I can't either!

Have a good weekend everyone. Catch you next week.

Smoke on the Water

We had a great day at my aunt and uncle's camp on July 4th. The star of the show was their golden retriever, Smoke. He's named after Nascar driver Tony Stewart, whose nickname is Smoke. If by some bizarre happenstance you meet my aunt, never, ever mention the name Jeff Gordon or you will get the stink-eye. Anyway, Smoke had surgery on his hip last year, and at 110 pounds, it's painful for him to exercise. So my uncle bought him a life vest since water is buoyant and easier on his joints. This was Smoke's first day to try out the new gear. He wasn't too sure at first, but he eventually caught on and liked it.

Oh, I'm not sure about this!!

Oh, wait...I can have a drink while I'm here.

Dad, are you sure about this?

My uncle tossed a rubber chicken into the water several times to get him going.

Rubber chicken! Must retrieve!!

Got it!

Neighbor Maggie looks on with excitement.

The handle was used to help Smoke out of the water.

More to come about our July 4th adventures. Stay tuned!

Miscellany and a PSA

Miscellaneous shots taken on an outing January 3rd.

Great Blue Heron

Mockingbird enjoying the peaceful setting.
I always imagine myself sitting in a place like this, but can never seem to actually do it.

Snowy egret

PSA: When I previewed this post, the photo of the snowy egret looked noticeably degraded in quality from what was appearing in Lightroom and Photoshop. The blue was more of a navy and the smooth water was filled with noise. Fiddling with the export settings did not help. I eventually discovered that the "Auto Enhance" feature in Google Plus's settings was not just for photos uploaded to G+, but it's applied to blog photos, too. That Google just takes it upon themselves to mess with photos that I have painstakingly edited makes me angry. After unchecking "Auto Enhance" under Google+...Settings...Photos, I re-uploaded the image. It's much better than it was, but I still find the quality and color off from LR and PS. Here is a better blog post explaining it if you care to read further. I just want to say to Google, "Knock it off!"

Photos from January 5th:

 Trio of canoers on the Tchefuncte River.

Lake Pontchartrain, Mandeville, LA, late afternoon
All of the photos that were shot with 200 ISO and f/8 came out looking 1/2 blue and 1/2 gray.
I wish I was technically savvy enough to know why, but I just accept and appreciate these happy accidents.
Maybe it was because dark clouds started to gather and my sensor was too low on sensitivity to record the scene properly.
The only editing applied was resizing, cloning out sensor dust in the sky, and a slight lighten.

I love the way the light hit the center of the Causeway Bridge

Water's like me. It's laaazy... Boy, it always looks for the easiest way to do things.
Bob Ross (painter and host of The Joy of Painting)